Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/650

Rh 626 POTTERY [ITALIAN ligure- subjects, usually sacred scenes. A very beautiful one in the Louvre has a Madonna and Child enthroned, drawn and composed with the simple grace of Raphael s early manner. Mo.st, however, have portraits of ladies drawn in profile, the background filled up with simple flowers, and an inscribed scroll, often with the lady s name and the word &quot;bella&quot; or &quot;diva,&quot; or with epigram matic mottoes (see fig. 56). The design is first drawn in FIG. 56. Early majolica plate, hi blue and yellow lustre only, made at Pesaro or Gubbio, c. 1500. The motto on the scroll is &quot; Chi bene guida sua barcha s entfa in porto&quot; (He who steers well his ship will enter the harbour). (Louvre.) blue outline, with a little delicate blue shading over the white flesh and a blue edging on the ground round the outline. The dress and the ornaments on the ground and rim of the plate were finally filled in with the yellow lustre, which was sufficiently transparent to let all the blue line details over which it was painted show through. Another rarer sort of early majolica, similar in style, has a deep ruby lustre, employed instead of the golden yellow. Fig. 57 shows a fine example of it, probably FIG. 57. Gubbio plate, with portrait in ruby lustre and blue outline. (South Kensington Museum.) produced at Gubbio, which had almost a monopoly of this special lustre, afterwards used so largely in the workshop of Maestro Giorgio. Other early varieties of majolica, painted in a simple and unpictorial way, have no lustre colours, but are remarkable for their brilliant and rather harsh green, with a good deal of manganese purple. Plates of this sort with female portraits, not generally in profile, and heraldic animals, frequently occur, as well as slabs or plaques intended for wall-decoration. Faenza and Forli appear to have been the chief places for their production. The Cluny Museum is very rich in speci mens. Cafaggiolo and Faenza also produced, during the early period, some very beautiful and highly-decora tive plates, painted without lustre, but with a variety of colours arranged with a most com plete harmony of tint. Some have patterns ineeni- Fic - 58. Eariy Faenza plate, with peacock - ., fo r feather design, in blues, yellow, and orange - OUSly devised alter red&amp;gt; (Sollth Kensington Museum.) a motive suggested by peacocks feathers (see fig. 58). The chief colours are yellow and orange, various blues, and occasionally a rich deep red. Amatory plates (&quot;amatorii&quot;), with ladies portraits, are also painted in this way, with more elabora tion and detail but not greater decorative beauty than the simple blue and yellow lustre of the early Pesaro and Gubbio ware. Specimens of the later Cafaggiolo ware bear the accompanying mark (see No. 3). Foiii was one of the earliest towns to produce a fine class of majolica; specimens exist dated 1470, of very noble design and firm outline. A fine set of plates and vases was made there (c. 1480-85) for Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary. The flesh of the figures, like that on the early Pesaro and Deruta ware, is white, delicately shaded with blue ; but the early Forli potters used a greater variety of colours than were employed at most other towns : in addition to the blues they had yellow, bright green, and purple -brown, all non- lustre colours. To Forli or Faenza must be attributed a very curious and rudely painted plate in the Sevres Museum, decorated with a youth on horseback in blue outline; it has a date which appears to read 1448; if so, this is the ear liest dated specimen of majolica. The enamel is coarse and crackled all over, but the method of execution is that of true majolica. Majolica of Maestro Giorgio Andreoli of Gulbio. TheGi workshop of this artist, most of whose dated works fall ^ ^ between 1517 and 1537, was one of the largest and mostj o important of his time. Its productions, as well as those with the signature &quot; M? G da Ugubio,&quot; or as in No. 4, are Potter s mark. No. 3. No. 4. No. 5. Potters marks. No. 6. very unequal in merit, and even the best of them are very inferior as specimens of true decorative art compared with the majolica of the earlier classes described above.